


Rumours (my last penny)

by typhe



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gossip, LHM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someone told me earlier," he said calmly, "that the bard that the king bestows such favour upon is a lowborn lout and a meddlesome conniving liar, envious of his betters and out to destroy the Court's social order."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rumours (my last penny)

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt by [macabre_monkey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre_monkey): _one thing I've noticed in your fics is that Stef seems reluctant to talk about his history, because Van has enough darkness/angst in his own history. So I want Van getting Stef to open up about his sordid past._
> 
> I hope to do more with the same prompt soon, but here's a completed story just for now.

Vanyel's been staring at me curiously since I walked through the door. I'm not _that_ much of a mess, am I? It's been a hell of a long afternoon, the kind that means I could happily just drop my gittern on a chair and crawl into bed right away, but I'm not sure that would get me out of whatever he's got in mind, so I thump myself down beside him on the couch instead. "What is it?" I demand.

"Someone told me earlier," he said calmly, "that the bard that the king bestows such favour upon is a lowborn lout and a meddlesome conniving liar, envious of his betters and out to destroy the Court's social order."

"Really? I'm impressed. What did you say to him?"

"That I could bring his comments to the king's attention, if he wished it - and this he declined - but I was more than satisfied with your performances, and with your devotion to duty." I choke back a laugh. He would, too. Without a twitch.

I pretend to think about it for a second. "I wouldn't deny any of it. Who isn't envious of a nice house and ten thousand silver a year?" He nods agreement blandly, waiting for me to give in and ask him. "Fine, then. Who?"

"Lord Hagar - young Lord Hagar, I should say. His father died a month ago and he came here to renew their barony's pledge to Randale."

"Huh. Most people just send a courier with a sealed note," I muse.

"He's hoping to pick up a wife, I'm sure. Hopefully not someone else's. Mind explaining how you managed to set his back up?"

My expression freezes. "I'd, uh, hoped it was bygones by now. Perhaps I should be flattered by the continuing interest." Van keeps looking at me quizzically, expecting an answer. And I do owe him an answer - he's _responsible_ for, among myriad other things, keeping political grudges from boiling out of control and if there's any trouble brewing around me he needs to stay informed.

But.

I look away, not even sure how to begin. "It's a pretty sordid story, even by Collegium standards."

He shrugs. "It's not like my Collegium years -" he pauses, and I mentally correct him in the blank, _months_ , "- were clean and wholesome. There must be worse tales about me." 

"Not particularly? You'd be surprised how little talk there is about the days when the Great Vanyel Demonsbane was a harmless young Palace scamp."

He raises both his eyebrows. "Well, good." We avert eyes from each other awkwardly; he usually doesn't want to talk about that time, even knowing that his secrets are more than safe with me. In truth, I'm astounded at how easily the collective gossip memory has misplaced the fact that the First Herald-Mage of Valdemar once had a clandestine romance with a murderer.

"You needn't feel completely left out," I continue lightly. "I did hear one delightful rumour about you only last week."

"Do tell."

"You're a virgin," I announce. "You're devoted to a Hawkbrother god who grants you all kinds of divine powers in exchange for forever refraining from sex. Obviously I just nodded sagely and told Lady Carew that I'm sure it must be true - that story's far too lovely to put out of its misery just yet."

He's staring at me in grim fascination. "Do they know _anything_ about Hawkbrothers?"

"I know, isn't it beautiful?" One day, I intend to write a book about the Tayledras and insert all manner of lurid falsehoods about their sexual habits. It'll cause a huge scandal and make me and some lucky printer very rich. 

"Stef," he says carefully, "I don't mean to pry, but I'd rather hear a sordid tale now than have to clean up a feud later."

I should have known there was no deterring him. "You're not prying," I reply, awkward. "It's just - not something I ever thought to tell you about. And, in any case, I've never even met his lordship Hagar." He frowns a question. "It was his younger brother, Toben."

"Ah. I was wondering how he could have ever run across you..." His face twitches. I guess it's the part where he's classing someone ten years younger than he is as being _too old_ to be simply my social acquaintance.

"Quite. So he may have heard a very different version of this story from the one that I'm about to tell you. But I swear mine is the absolute truth." I give him that smile that reminds him that he can't trust me (although it _will_ be the absolute truth), and I lean back on the arm of the couch and cross my ankles over each other. May as well settle into my storyteller act. "I think Toben's about three years older than me - enough that it seemed like a lot at the time. He had certainly been at the Collegium for some time before I showed up, and I remember noticing early on that Medren really disliked him. He had some kind of bee in his bonnet about bastardry. Looking back, I guess he was acting out about either some doted-on child of his father's mistress, or some foul rumours about his lady mother -"

"The former," Vanyel confirms. "She's a Herald trainee now - if she hadn't been chosen I fear the old coot would have tried to write her into his will."

"Scandalous," I reply flatly. "Well, that meant he hated Medren and, uh, I managed to offend a lot of people just by not knowing what was expected here."

"I know what that feels like -"

"No -" I bite back on a sharp retort. _You have no idea._ "I may be understating," I try, awkward again. "I don't mean I was missing a few Court social rules. More like not knowing there _was_ a Court. Ask Medren what I was like, sometime." _Please don't._ "I didn't know anything I was supposed to and I knew more than a few things I wasn't supposed to. I had Breda tearing her hair out for weeks before..." I trail off, not sure how much to say.

"Before what?" he prompts.

"I don't know. I just realised one day that she truly meant well. Lynnell had dropped me here just after Sovvan, and I spent the first few weeks being scared and confused and not saying much to anyone. Medren had persuaded me that I could trust the food and that no one was going to - well, that was about it. By then it was getting on for midwinter, and all the other apprentices and most of the bards went home to celebrate. But Breda stayed on and kept trying to teach me to write -" I still remember her face when she realised I was left-handed, as if I hadn't confounded her enough already. "And she spent hours just being around me, sharing songs and telling me some some barebones of history and how to tie my bootlaces and suchlike. I'd always hated midwinter - however many temple-goers you can squeeze money out of, you burn it just as fast keeping warm. I was looking out at the snow one day and thinking _'better here than out there'_ , and it all caught up with me at once. That I had enough to eat and a bed right up next to a chimney-flue, and no one had tried to throw me out into the cold no matter what mistakes I made, and no one had shook me down for money. Breda really was trying to take care of me, not just make use of me." I shake my head. "I seem to be departing from the point, which is that I was completely clueless about what was expected of me here, or of anyone else. Enter Toben Hagar."

"So what did you do to him, exactly?"

"Nothing. That was the beauty of it. A bunch of his young lordly cronies had just joined him at the Collegium - not Bardic apprentices, just normal highborn pupils, and I think they were mostly older than him, but they took to spending a lot of time in his room. Which was right next to ours. At some point, Medren asked me if I'd noticed a weird smell hanging around - he was painfully polite about it too, like he was bending over backwards not to seem like he thought it was anything to do with the fact that he was living with a bit of street scum who'd never owned more than one pair of socks before - and I stared at him like he'd lost his senses." I grin, because after all these years I still don't quite _get_ it. "Because it wasn't weird and I didn't get how anyone could _not_ know what it was. It was like not knowing what _cheese_ smelt like." Vanyel leans closer with his hands folded under his chin, impatient with my riddle. "Argonel fumes. They were heating it over a tin bowl and inhaling the stuff."

His eyes widen. "That sounds unwise."

"You don't say. Thing is, I hadn't a clue that there were any _rules_ against it until Medren told me. I figured, people did as they liked if they had enough money - argonel's expensive but Toben seemed to have plenty of other nice things. The expense was irrelevant, anyway, as it turned out he'd been stealing it from the Healers."

Van winces. "And how old was he?"

"Fourteen, I think? Something like that. Old enough to get in a pile of trouble but not old enough to deal with it. Anyhow, Medren explained that it _wasn't_ allowed, and I was - thrilled. I hated being anywhere near that stuff." I smile beatifically. "So he got musing about how to politick the whole thing out, figured he could at least blackmail Toben into leaving him the hell alone - dear sensible Medren. While I sidled off and told Breda all about it." Vanyel looks actively pained by my lack of social competence so I add, "Yeah, I was new. And at that point I was asking Breda about every dumb thought that entered my head - I felt like Medren must be wrong somehow. I couldn't believe that the adults would have decided that breathing argonel wasn't allowed."

"Whyever not?"

I hesitate. I wish he hadn't asked, because I love words and I love telling stories but I wish he could _know_ without me having to spell out the rough patches. "At that point, I'd never met an adult who wasn't hooked on something."

His eyes widen for a fleeting moment, and to my surprise he reaches over to take my hands. A low note of feeling passes across our lifebond, and it takes me a moment to realise that it's me and not him.

He doesn't mind hearing. He minds that I mind telling.

He stands abruptly, and I wonder if he's tired of the story while half the meat of it is still on its bones but I peer around to see what in hells he's up to and find him returning with a comb. "You keep still," he tells me, and starts gently running it through the ends of my hair. Maybe I am that much of a mess? For a moment I bask in the odd intimacy of having someone tend to you for no reason, before he prompts me, "Go on."

"Breda went spare. The Healers had already let a few Collegium higherups know that they were missing a few drams of argonel - she hated that the Bardic students were always the ones under suspicion of being rowdy, intoxicated miscreants -"

"Can't imagine how anyone could have got that impression," he interrupts. "And Breda is rowdier than any three of her apprentices."

"Quite. But anyhow, at first I thought it was _me_ she was mad at. I thought, I hadn't meant to but I'd just told her because I was confused and I'd gone and broken the only rule I ever heard of. It's ground into you on the streets, you know? You can do anything, kill someone for a fix or _anything_ , except nark."

"Nark?"

"Tattle. Tell tales, to parties who would be interested in those tales. Such as the City Guard, not that they'd listen." Somehow his touch is making it easy for me to say bitter things, making me feel thoughtless and unguarded enough to _stop performing_ for a few minutes, and just be with him. "I must've seemed pretty distraught about it - I'd started to think that Breda liked me, and if I'd done something to make her angry, I figured they'd send me away."

I shiver under his hands and feel the comb catch. He steadies me for a moment, hands slipping around my shoulders, and I can almost feel him wondering. I keep on talking, try to ride on past it. "It was a damn mess for Bardic, I'm sure - the Hagars are rich as sin, the Healers wanted Toben expelled, and he was young enough that if it had been up to Breda, she would have wanted him to get punished harshly but to have a second chance. I still don't know what happened, exactly - I think Dellar must've blackmailed the family into pulling him home. Meanwhile, I'd been thinking about Breda not being mad at me, and souring on the values I'd grown up with like only a child can." At that, I feel him smile. "Perhaps I should drop young Lord Hagar a note saying I'd like to thank his brother for all he taught me? His dear friends stopped by with another lesson later, too."

"Oh, really?"

"They were waiting in our room when Medren got back from dinner one night. Three of them, no weapons, just wanted to remind the bastards their place, I guess. I was about a minute behind him. He acquitted himself well, I think."

Vanyel snorts. "He better have. And you?"

"I think I surprised them. I was _tiny_ back then - looked even younger than the Healers had decided I was, and one midwinter festival wasn't enough to pad out my bones much. Reminded me of one bit of street-sense; never fight someone for his last penny, because there's nothing he won't do to keep it."

"Your last penny?"

"My only friend. My first real home..." I shrug. "I think I left teethmarks on one of them, I was so ferocious. After they'd run away, Medren sat me down and - right there, with a fresh black eye to add to the absurdity - talked at me about not getting into situations that ended in fights, and moot though it was...I don't like fighting and I felt bad about it, like all I was doing was turning myself into a person I _didn't_ want to be. I was surrounded by all these highborns who talked about Court all the time and I was just starting to get that it was full of rules and it was something I needed to care about, so I hated being that uncivilised little ratboy who ought to be sent back to his gutter."

His fingers pause, and he draws them softly along my scalp, as if he's looking for the knots inside my head. "They said that to you?"

"Of course," I murmur. "They were highborn brats, Van." Nothing worth being sore over now. I feel a tug as he starts gently attacking a tangled root. I swear he cares at least ten times more about my appearance than I do, at least when I'm not on duty. "Ow - what is this in aid of?"

"Empathy, partly," he admits. "Even with you, it's a lot sharper when we're touching." I chew my lip, trying to remind myself that he wouldn't ever use that power to _hurt_ me. "Though I could put ringlets in it, if you like."

"You could?"

"Lissa showed me how once. Night before Meke's wedding - I did hers and she did mine. Mother didn't understand why Father was so furious." I smile at the story, but I can feel him reaching out to me, reading me on a level that I've never let anyone else even know is there. "Stef," he says softly, and I lean back, wondering which part of the sordidness he's going to pick to pieces. "Why are you ashamed?"

It takes me a while to reply, and I feel him pull his way steadily through to the ends of my hair, never overdoing the pressure. "Why wouldn't I be ashamed? I _was_ an uncivilised lout."

"You were just a _child_ ," he says, and I'm shocked by the hurt in his quiet voice. "How you grew up wasn't your choice or your fault. And your talents gave you as much right to be there as any of the highborn apprentices, or more."

"Talent's all very fine for apprentices," I reply flatly.

"What do you mean?"

I sigh, still feeling him fussing, making partings in odd places. "Bardic was _always_ my last penny. It'll take more than talent for me to get by as a Master Bard. There was a safe place for me there, as an apprentice - but a Bard makes his own way in the world. The others all have parents who know people, families to fall back on - even Medren. If I ever wreck my hands or my voice, or if I can't keep myself popular -" I shiver again, fear closing over my words.

"Then what?" he demands.

It's not even _fear_ , it's just _reality_. Just what I've always known about the course of my life and all the flimsy bridges and cracking ice and quicksand that lies ahead of me. "I've only one place to fall back to, and that's the streets."

His hands stop dead and his voice sounds like ice on my spine. "You think I'd _ever_ let that happen to you?"

I slump, feeling my hair slip through his hands and I'm embarrassed to feel tears pricking out onto my fingers. "I, I wasn't thinking about that." It's mostly true, but he _cares_ so damnably much that I may as well try for all true. "What if, what if it's not up to you? There's more important things in your life than me. You've said it a dozen times. I can't expect you to be able to drop things and take care of me...I can't just rely on you like that."

I hear his comb hit the floor. "Yes. You can."

I hurt him. I just hurt him, didn't I? I didn't _know_. He keeps telling me he _can't_ have a commitment to me, that duty comes first and if duty has to part us, it will, and I've _tried_ not to ask him for more than a place to sleep beside him at night. He doesn't even want most people to _know_ about us. We've never talked about the future, and barely talked about the present. How did he expect me to know that he planned to take care of me?

"Stef," and he's squeezing at my shoulders, a pleading edge in his voice. "My _parents_ would never let that happen. Nor would Randale, or Jisa and Treven. You've earned too much respect from them, and in any case I _know_ they'd care for you just as well as they would if it were _me_. My family are your family. My friends are your friends."

He's beside me in a moment and his arms wrap around me, and I _feel_ the offer of his strength and safety, so unfamiliar I don't even know what to do with it - I've _always_ known there's no one to rely on, no one to catch me if I fall back through the cracks. I curl into him, and find it's hard even to sob. He's whispering, "I swear, I swear," and it might be the first thing he's ever been able to promise me. I don't know if I'm hurting or happy or both.

"I'm sorry," I say after a while, not raising my head. "I hadn't really considered..."

"No," he replied. "You considered leading your own life and earning your own fortune. You've considered everything will go right - and it will. Because you're brilliant," and he lays his head against mine, and I know he means it, in the most biased way possible. "But _whatever_ happens, you've got _me_ to fall back on. I promise."

It's like any of his kindnesses, unthinking, something he couldn't _not_ offer whether I asked for it or not. It's like he's holding me safe above the pit of my fears, determined to keep me in this world where I don't belong and am barely, conditionally accepted, the world he was _born_ into. Does he not understand what I might do to his precious reputation? Talk's cruel, not just among younglings. If I'm to rely on him, I can't appear to do so, for both our sakes.

"Van, honestly -" Just thinking of it feels beyond awkward, and I pull away, looking at him sideways. "If we're talking rumours, how many wagging tongues are already saying this is just an, an _arrangement_?" I guess it's not something he has to think of - he's a Herald, he's got a head full of rules he can't stray from, he's never thought of having a kept lover _or_ of being kept, and has no idea how rare his innocence is. I certainly don't share it. I was always too proud for that game, and I feel filthy just thinking about the players I sometimes met; the lords and merchants who'd come on long visits to Haven, sending touching letters back home to their wives every week while they fished around Haven's riverside for young men who like older men.

He pales, and then gives me his considered reply. "Lover, I couldn't _afford_ you." And I laugh, more for the bluntness of it than the flattery.


End file.
